Edgar Sheffield Brightman was a philosopher of religion whose influence was greatest from 1930 until about 1960, when shifting social and academic trends led to a decline in interest in the sort of philosophy and theology he espoused. His concepts of the finite/ infinite God and of the relationships among consciousness, person, and value, however, remain permanent contributions to American philosophy of the twentieth century.

Brightman was born in Holbrook, Massachusetts, on 20 September 1884, the only child of George Edgar and Mary Sheffield Brightman, both of whom were descended from old and distinguished New England families. His father was a Methodist minister; as a result of the required itinerancy of that denomination, Brightman spent his childhood in several places in New England, including the islands of Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard. He graduated from high school in Whitman, Massachusetts, in 1901. Considered too young to begin college, he worked in a Provincetown grocery...